


let us go then, you and i

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: Beyond the lantern-lit halls of Nargothrond, the autumn eve must be spreading out against the sky. But within -within, Bëor still has time.





	let us go then, you and i

**Author's Note:**

  * For [erlkoenig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/gifts).



> apparently my shadow twin promised the Powers That Be "my kingdom for Beor/Finrod but i realize thats such a rare pair goddamn. . . Story elements = Please just give me a happy ending. Hurt me as much as you want just give me happy in the end"
> 
> ~~third time's the charm, remember, you said so yourself~~
> 
> *makes for the hills*
> 
> heavily inspired by T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

 

Beyond the warm, lantern-lit halls of Nargothrond, Bëor imagines, the autumn eve must be spreading out against the sky, like a sick man sprawled limp and senseless across a healer’s table. The mist off the Narog must be rising, sly and stealthy as a cat, to rub its clammy muzzle against all who venture out of doors, and surely even the ever-present bustle of the great court has stilled to honor the dusk.

Well. In some other room the courtiers may yet come and go, speaking in tongues he does not know, but –

No matter. For a little while longer, Bëor knows, he yet has time. There is time to wonder how _(and that)_ he dared disturb the order of the world, and better still, to marvel that this was where his decisions led him –

His head in Nom’s lap, his cheek to his lover’s thigh and his arm across his lover’s knee, his satiated frame stretched close between his lover’s legs. Nom’s skin is warm beneath his own, and if his hair or beard, coarse and graying with years, prickles against that fair skin, than Nom does not say.

Once _(so many years ago)_ , Bëor would never have curled up quiescent this soon, so quick and so content to fall asleep after a single bout while his lover remained awake, able perhaps to be coaxed to further pleasure. But then again –

Once _(so many years ago)_ , Bëor had not known Nom, or the soft touch that is Nom’s hands as they descend to card through his hair.

“You look so peaceful,” Nom says. His tone is as soft as his touch; both are quiet, endless delight. “I do not see you like this often enough, melmë – sometimes I think that you must hate the court as much as Edrahil does.”

_(of course he does, but he has known their eyes already, known them all, heard them whisper that his hair is growing thin, that his arms have leaned and lost their tone)_

“What are you thinking of, tonight, with that silly smile on your face?” Nom asks.

He is thinking, that is all – thinking, with that strange disordered slowness sleep brings – that sleep is the nearest that he has ever known to death. His time has been measured out – every evening, morning, afternoon – and yet each night, after every pleasure, he must sleep, while Nom rarely rests.

But how would he presume, to tell his lover so? 

He would not. “Wondering – _mmm_ – wondering why you chose me.”

“Chose you?” Nom snorts, delicately. “Melmë, you have fascinated me from the moment I saw you! I did not understand a word you spoke at our first meeting, and yet I felt it no loss, for surely I would come to understand everything I needed to, in time.”

As he speaks, one of Nom’s hands snags on the ear that Bëor does not have pressed to his thigh. The hand withdraws hurriedly and Nom murmurs in apology, before moving back higher, to the crown of his head. It is almost as if, after all these years, he still imagines that Bëor’s ears are so sensitive – as if, even after all these years, perhaps he imagines they were Elven ears.

Bëor finds that he would rather not think on that _(but how should he presume)_ , and besides, he is falling fast. “Not – _mmmm_ – not everything is a story, Nom. Nor do all our lives – _ah_ – work like the great tales, the ones we tell our children even as we – we – we” – a great yawn splits his sentence – “despair that they will ever understand our choices.”

“Psssh.” Nom’s hands in his hair never falter. “And yet I have no children, melmë, nor ever will.”

_(is it the scent of him – clean earth, new leaves – that makes a Man digress?)_

He will try again some other time, Bëor resolves. “Tell me your favorite story.”

“Why?” Nom asks, amused. Even without looking, Bëor knows: Nom’s arms are braceleted and white and bare, and the low soft light reveals the sheerest down of golden hair.

Because. “I don’t want to fall asleep, not yet.”

_(shall I say, I would have gone at dusk)_

“An excellent reason,” Nom says approvingly. Somewhat daring, one of his hands slides beneath Bëor’s same ear that it had tripped upon earlier, and now rubs feather-light against the hollow.

Bëor does not feel it as an Elven lover would. He will not stir or rise again for Nom tonight, as Nom seems to think perhaps he would, if touched _just there_. . .

And then Nom shifts beneath him, and a pleasurable heat stirs in Bëor’s belly at the movement and the moan, but – nothing more.

This is not the first time that Bëor has regretted his encroaching age, and it will it not be the last.

_(these hands, a pair of ragged claws)_

He yawns again.

“And besides, it seems as though sleep will deprive me of your company if I do not indulge you,” Nom muses. “But what story shall I tell, I wonder, that is short enough you will understand it?” His hand has stopped teasing at the hollow of Bëor’s ear, and now moves, tentative, to pinch at the lobe.

“I-“ Another enormous yawn nearly dislodges Nom’s wandering hand. “I can understand all your tales well enough.”

“Can you?” Nom asks, laughing softly. “What if I were to tell you how it was to look upon the Sun when She rose from the Sea for the very first time? How we shouted for joy to see that the Dark One had a new enemy, how we stamped our frozen feet and hoisted icy banners, how red flowers sprang to life beneath our very feet?”

Some significant moment in Elven history, no doubt, stretches out across the bed between them, and in its wake, Bëor has not the strength or will to force old questions to their crisis. “Another one. A different one.”

_(he has enough war-tales of his own. once, so many years ago, he had wept and fasted, wept and prayed, begging their gods that he might be a prophet)_

“A tale to keep you awake, you mean,” Nom interprets this. “Of course, what else?” A playful finger descends to tap smoothly at Bëor’s nose. “Demanding!”

As if Nom had not been the one spread beneath Bëor just earlier this very eve, demanding his adoration in ways that Bëor had been only too happy to give. As if Nom had not been the one who then stretched luxuriously, demanding cleaning, petting, holding, as the afternoon, the evening, rolled on so peacefully.

_(and he was no prophet, but it was no matter – the Mountains were crossed)_

But for all he sniffs, as if Bëor’s plea is some great burden to bear, Nom’s fingers move from teasing the lobe of his lover’s ear to tracing its shell: following the shape of it ever so softly, up and up and up. . . “A tale of us, then. Would that be of enough interest to you, melmë?”

He can hear the scraping rasp of his coarse and graying beard; his nod must chafe against Nom’s thigh.

And Nom shivers. “Mmmmmm – such unbridled enthusiasm!” Perhaps he means to sound admonishing, but it is breathless instead. “A tale of us it is, then.”

Finding no reaction from even the folds of Bëor’s ear, Nom’s fingers now quest further still. As if greatly daring indeed, they brush lightly against the tip of his ear – just where they had caressed in accident before.

And this time, _this time_ , Bëor shivers.

Mind, it is not because he can feel the touch as keenly as Nom seems to imagine that he will. But it _is_ because that is what Nom imagines he will feel, and Bëor has always followed on the strength of Nom’s deeds – even when it had never been possible to say precisely what he meant in doing so.  

_(would it have been worthwhile to confess, should his lover turn to say, ‘that is not it, at all’)_

Away above Bëor’s head Nom chortles, quietly but with mischievous glee – no doubt pleased with himself for having finally provoked a response. And as he laughs, his thigh moves again beneath Bëor’s drooping cheek, and Bëor groans at the disturbance in his comfortable cushion.

“A tale of us, then,” Nom repeats, cheerfully. His hands resume carding through Bëor’s hair, as meekly as if they would never have attempted anything else. “Well, if I must!”

Nom’s tones are purest music, even when he is jesting, and every word from his lips is song.

“I will not – _mmmm_ – say you must, but.” His voice is but a shadow, now, and even song will not help Bëor remain awake. “Please.”

“Hah! As if I could say no to anything you asked. Well then! Once upon a time, a prince finished the great endeavor of hewing a kingdom from the very stone, and he quickly grew tired – deathly bored, in fact – of his people’s vain praises.” Nom’s fingers trace nerves and patterns. “So he set forth in search of new adventures. Far and wide he wandered, seeking knowledge and understanding, when one day he encountered a marvel he had never seen before – the Secondborn of Ilúvatar Himself.”  

Darkness beckons, and Bëor that knows he must fall. It is only a matter of time, which Nom has in abundance and Bëor himself does not.

But it was worth it, after all.

“Not a pretend story.” He does not know the word for what he means in Nom’s tongue, so he uses his own, and then tries to explain. “A real story.”

Nom’s laughter, louder this time, shines like crystal, and his thigh beneath Bëor’s cheek shakes with the force of it. The movement jostles and cuts through the darkness, buying Bëor a little time more. “Pretend? Unless my Taliska has utterly failed me, melmë, you are being absurd. What do you think a story _is_?”

No, that is not what he meant, at all.

Never mind what Bëor thinks. “I just don’t like that one.”

Nom shifts again, still laughing. “My silly Man, it’s the story of how we met!” The movement of his hands has turned from lustful to peaceful to playful – he tugs gently at Bëor’s curls. “What do you mean, you don’t like it? I adore it!”

Despite his best efforts, Bëor’s eyes have fallen shut again. “It’s too sad.”

Nom’s hands still even as his voice hushes. “Sad? Melmë, what do you mean?”

He means that he would take some light with him, if he could, when the darkness comes for good and he must rise and go to meet it. And he only hopes that the same will be true of his House and their histories, left to his sons’ care when Bëor himself came to Nom.

“So much of the truth of that tale will be lost.” Even from behind closed eyes, Bëor can remember it all so clearly. Other memories have faded – this one, he thinks, never will. “You will be remembered, Nom, and that is good. I may be remembered, and that is well enough. But my people. . .”

For the span of a breath, Nom’s hands clench in his hair. “No. No, melmë, no – I will see to it the House of Bëor lives on, in tale and in song.” His voice shivers in the night air around them; his chamber seems to echo with it. “So long as I live, so long will your heirs!”

That is not what Bëor meant. That is not what he meant at all.

“Do not tempt the gods.” To soften the rebuke, he turns his face deeper into Nom’s thigh and presses a kiss to its tender skin. “They are always listening, and –“ it grows tiresome, to be stretching his jaw this way, every third sentence – “they will hold you to even, _mmmmm_ , the most careless words.”

Nom’s laughter could almost be a sob. “And well should I know it. If I thought that you could remain awake to hear it, melmë, oh but I could tell you such a story about oaths to the gods!”

Knowing that Nom is watching him fall is all that could possibly give Bëor the strength to force his eyes open. Just a little while longer. . . “I do not sleep yet, melna.” 

And when he looks up, Nom is beaming down upon him. “No, of course you aren’t. Well, then. Since you are not sleeping, will you tell me which parts of our story you would not see lost?”

It will sound ridiculous to this immortal creature, Bëor is certain. But who better to tell, if he would have the truth be remembered?

“That we were frightened, and that we were dying of cold and hunger,” he tells his kingly lover. “That we had left our lands and our gods behind, and that the Mountains took so many lives that we feared we had done them some dishonor, though what it was we could not tell.” Sooner than he would like, his eyes are threatening to fall shut once more. “That when you came to us that night, we thought you were the Hunter of legend. That when you laid your hand upon my breast, and named me Bëor, we thought that you had claimed my life for your own.”

_(he is almost, at times, a fool)_

 The problem with having opened his eyes is that now Bëor must watch Nom frown. “Ai, melmë – I wish that I had found you sooner. I would have saved you all of that, if I could.”

Then his brow creases. “Wait. The Hunter – melmë, your people thought I was the Moringotto?”

It is only a moment before Nom is laughing again, and now, so many years past the pain and the fear of that misunderstanding, Bëor finds that he can see the humor in it, too. It is surprising _(and yet, not surprising at all)_ that Nom had never realized how much they struggled to make sense of him.

But.  

But Bëor’s people yet live, and his sons and theirs yet carry the fires of his House, and Bëor himself lies drained and warm in the lap of a king. It is not how he would have imagined his days might eventually  find their close, and yet, it is also more than he could ever have dreamed he would have. He can make no complaint, he supposes, when some night soon the darkness comes to stake its claim for good.

_(I grow old, I grow old, I will wear the bottoms of my breeches rolled. . .)_

But for now – tonight – Bëor simply smiles up at his lover, digging his chin and his beard into Nom’s thigh in gentle retaliation for his amusement.

“What else were we-“ his yawns return “- to think of you, Nom? Our histories described no one else with gems in their hair, and taller than the greatest of our tribe’s sons.” This is not, Bëor thinks, a gulf between them that can be breached, and he for one is glad that they need no longer try. Nom is Nom, and he is – well, now he is simply Bëor.

But if there is anything Bëor has learned about Nom, it is that the King of the Hewn Caves can be distracted easily enough. “And the histories certainly – aaa _aah_ , mmm – named no other who was given to being borne upon the back of a meat-eating demon that flew upon the bones of its fingers.”

 “Ai!” Nom protests, but the feint seems to have worked – he is laughing again. Indeed, he looms over Bëor as he leans forward, his hands descending from Bëor’s hair to his unprotected side, where they poke with merciless vigor. Bëor groans in protest at the fingers that dance across his ribs, but his body is too at ease to attempt much more movement, and risk dislodging itself from its comfortable position.

“I will never understand why you hate horses so,” Nom continues, leaving off his prodding when it becomes obvious that Bëor will not be moved, even for this. “What has my poor Roccolindë ever done to you?”

“Besides nip at my face, and bellow his distrust of me? The first I will take only from you-“ this yawn is Bëor’s widest yet- “and the second from, eh, Edrahil, I suppose.”

 “Edrahil?” Nom’s voice is indulgent, and he shoves lightly at Bëor’s shoulder. “Come now, melmë – he may have a crusty exterior but I’m sure he likes you well enough. Or at least as well as he likes anyone?”

“Perhaps.” Mmmmm, no – Bëor is not as unobservant as his lover. Nom’s captain is jealous of Bëor’s place in Nom’s bed.

His eyes have fallen shut once more. Edrahil, he thinks again – Edrahil will be the one who fights for this, when Bëor is gone.

 “Nothing I propose tonight will please you, eh?” Nom nudges harder, but Bëor can hear his smile in his voice, and this – this he will not lose, no matter how long he closes his eyes.

_(it was worth it, after all)_

“My stories are too sad, my horse is too intimidating, my most trusted guardsman is too curt. Ai!” Nom sights in mock lament, but his hands are busy once more. One has resumed its place and its slow, soothing rhythms in Bëor’s hair, and the other –

The other reaches for Bëor’s own hand, where it still lies in the valley of Nom’s legs, and, finding it, clasps it soft and tugs it high so that Nom can press the softest of kisses to his fingers.

“So be it,” Nom murmurs. The words are teasing but the tone is fond, and Bëor can feel each and every syllable sinking into his tired bones. “Go to sleep then, melmë, and know that I will be awaiting you most impatiently when you wake once more.”

For all that he was chief of his House, once, Bëor knows that he is no great prince, nor was ever meant to be. In the weaving that will be his people’s histories, and the shining tapestry that is Nom’s, Bëor imagines his role is more that of an attendant lord – a figure in the background of the court, or one who will move greater histories toward their ends, but little more.

And, most of the time, he does not regret this. Nom is of the fabled sea-folk, those whom Bëor’s own histories can only glimpse at, singing each to each and striding seaward, ever seaward. And even though they will not sing for him, still –

This night he holds a sea-king in his arms.

The darkness beckons more insistently, and this time, with Nom still clasping his hand, Bëor knows that he has lingered long enough, and at last is safe to fall.


End file.
